Let me start out by saying that gaming has always been, and remains to this day my favorite hobby. It's that special kind of escapism that you can enjoy with others just as easily as you can alone. The internet allows us to play competitively and cooperatively with friends and anonymous players around the world with incredible ease, and there has never been such a wide selection of games to play on such a wide selection of platforms. But as with every great thing, there are some drawbacks. We have become more globally interconnected as gamers, and game developers and publishers have become more and more active online in the past decade or so. But with this information overload I feel myself becoming more cynical toward and less enthusiastic about my favorite hobby. So forget basic over consumption for a moment, and consider that this may be why.

Nothing is a surprise anymore

I remember back in the 90's when I first played games like Super Mario 64, Final Fantasy VII, and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, I was completely awestruck and mesmerized by every facet of each of them. When I realized for the first time on my own that I was able to walk in 360 degrees in Super Mario 64, and traverse a pseudo-open world relatively freely, 6-year-old-me's mind was ready to explode. Magazines such as Nintendo Power (recently deceased) and Electronic Gaming monthly (recently reborn) were the go-to sources for almost all gaming news. As soon as the monthly issue of the magazine was printed, you had to wait another month for updated information. This was at a time when websites like IGN were in their infancy, and had nowhere near the reader/viewer base they have today; where one can receive news updates hourly. As much as I love IGN (I visit the website at least once per day), the endless video previews, trailer analyses, reviews, and the like leave very little to the imagination in terms of what to expect from an upcoming game.

These days, once I finally get the opportunity to begin playing a new game I've been looking forward to, the law of diminishing returns has already begun to take it's toll because in a sense I've already experienced portions of the game. To me at least, there is a certain allure to entering into a game blindly, with no preconceived notions of what you're getting yourself into; kind of like how it was in the 1980's. If you will, imagine for a moment your favorite game in your mind. What would it have been like to purchase that game without knowing anything about it prior to the purchase, and then discovering on your own the wonder that it beheld? In my opinion, it would lead to a much greater feeling of satisfaction, which leads me to my next point.

What would experiencing a game like Journey be like without any prior knowledge of it?

Review scores

To be honest, as a consumer, I really like review scores. They allow me to tell at a glance whether a game is worth my time and money or not. On the other hand, as a gamer, review scores are a very poor method of judging games, and you're doing your self a disservice by passing games up purely based on the score (which is someone else's opinion). You're seeing what that individual reviewer thought of the game, but not why they thought it. What exactly is the difference between a game receiving a score of 8.6, and a score of 8.7? How is such a minute difference calculated in the mind of the reviewer? One of the reasons I've tried to avoid looking at review scores is because, once again, they implant a notion of the game's quality in your mind, prior to knowing why, or even having had the chance to experience the game for yourself. Unfortunately, many people who see the review scores consider anything below a certain threshold (9/10, for example) to be bad games.

A friend of mine recently said that she was disappointed about how "terribly" Hitman Absolution had turned out. She had not played the game, and was basing her opinion solely off of the 79 score it had received on Metacritic. I have not played Hitman Absolution, so I have no opinion of it's quality, but I'll give you an example of I why I've decided to disregard scores in general. Recently I decided to give The Saboteur a try. The game was released in 2009 to mixed reviews, and I had put it off as just another middle of the road action game. One day I decided to pick it up because it was only a few dollars, and after sinking more than 40 hours into the game, even through all of it's problems, I can conclusively say it was one of the most surprisingly enjoyable experiences I've had with a game in some time. I wouldn't be so concerned about review scores this if they didn't have any effect, but the reality is that they can have a considerable affect on sales. Clearly review scores aren't the only factor here, but unfortunately, The Saboteur ended up selling poorly, and was the final game to be developed and released by the now-defunct Pandemic Studios. As much as I'd like for review scores to become a thing of the past, and have the text of the review become the focus instead, I just can't see this happening. Scores are just so easily digestible, requiring minimum effort from the reader in order to comprehend and evaluate, that I don't see them disappearing any time soon.

Disregarding review scores for The Saboteur and playing it anyway made it that much more satisfying when I ended up enjoying it.

Downloadable Content

Now as I'm sure you will all agree, downloadable content can be a really great thing. There's nothing better than having additional content available for a game that you adore. But this is where I need to distinguish between what I view as 'good' and 'bad' DLC, and these terms have nothing to do with the quality of the content, and really only apply to paid content, as complaining about something that is free is generally a display of ridiculous entitlement. "Good" DLC is the kind of additional content that really provides you with a strong incentive to purchase it; two recent examples being the Artorias of the Abyss add-on for Dark Souls, and the Dragonborn add-on for Skyrim. Again, I should clarify that I am not judging this DLC as 'good' by the quality of the content, but more by the principle of how it is delivered. Both deliver large amounts of content; both add-ons provide incentive for players who have completed these games to come back; and most importantly as dictated by my 'good' standard, neither piece of DLC seems to have already been on the disk and programmed to lock players out until they purchase that section of the game separately. So this is where my standard of 'bad' DLC comes into play. Bad DLC is content that is either on the disk already and locked out unless purchased, OR DLC that is available within days or even a couple weeks after the core game ships. These are both bad because they reek of companies trying to take advantage of and milk the loyalty of their core fan-base of as much money as possible, as quickly as possible.

Buying games in general (in North America at least) is cheaper than it has ever been. In early 2001 I bought Conker's Bad Fur Day brand new on the N64 for $69.99. Adjusted for inflation, that works out to roughly $88.84 in today's money. Even the games that cost $45 - $60 in the 1990's like Super Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time would cost more than $70 in today's valuation. The reason I bring this up is to say that I am not being critical of companies charging us too much money for games, because that's just not the case. The problem arises when publishers and developers start charging us for things that should not be charged for, and should already be included with the initial purchase price. This isn't even including the myriad of character skins and outfits (horse armor anyone?), bare-bones additional levels (not to pick on Oblivion, but the pointless Orrery and Thieves Den add-ons, for example), and a ton of other junk that is seemingly hand picked out of a landfill and a price tag slapped on it.

Not to beat a dead horse, but is this armor really a necessary addition?

Conclusion

I could go on for ages about a slew of other things that seemingly serve only to detract from what makes video games special, but I think I'll conclude this here. Perhaps my dissatisfaction with gaming these days really does stem from over consumption; too much of a good thing. Or maybe it's just one of the unfortunate realities of growing older; not being able to derive as much enjoyment out of my favorite things as I used to. Whatever the case, as much as I've complained here today, I can't seem to part myself with video games, and I will continue to enjoy them as I always have, but I don't think I'll ever be able to part myself from the idea that we aren't (at least, I'm not) experiencing games to their fullest potential.

Bioshock Infinite is my most anticipated game, but am I doing myself a disservice by absorbing so much preview information?